"Acts of Faith" by Philip Caputo
Posted by Max Dunn Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:50:00 GMT
Usually when we think of “faith” we associate it with religion. Faith in God, faith in life after death, those kinds of things. And while religious faith is usually a positive force, it has a dark side too. Besides religious faith, many other types of faith are intricately woven into our lives in ways we often don’t realize.
These are some of the ideas that Philip Caputo explores in his book Acts of Faith using relief efforts in the Sudan as the stage.
Take for instance math. We usually think that math is all based on proofs and theorems so that we can know absolutely and certainly that everything is correct. However, at the very heart of all mathematical proofs are some very simple assumptions that can’t be proven. One is A=A, or in other words, that every number equals itself. This seems so obvious that we don’t have any trouble accepting that it is always true. But in reality, there is no proof for this and we have to take it on faith. For instance, how can we know that some very, very large or very, very small number is always equal to itself? Or what about some of those weird numbers like the square root of -1 or pi or numbers that are start approaching these weird numbers? Can we be so sure that at some point in the future we won’t discover some very weird number that isn’t always equal to itself?
After all, this is exactly what happened with our understanding of physics. Newton’s laws, those like F=MA, seemed to explain everything about physical objects. But then we started looking at things that moved really fast, close to the speed of light, and discovered that these laws no longer applied. Then we discovered that very small particles could act sometimes like energy and sometimes like matter, and again Newton’s law broke down. Or maybe you could say that our “faith” in Newton’s Laws was broken.
Outside of the sciences, we need faith to operate every day. Driving down the street is an extreme act of faith in our fellow drivers. What stops other drivers from swerving over and crashing into our car? We pass hundreds, or even thousands, of cars every day, and if one of them fainted, was severely drunk, wanted to commit an act of terror or simply wanted to end their life, there would really be nothing we could do if the suddenly swerved into our car. So the simple act of driving down the street requires an immense amount of faith in our fellow drivers.
Philip Caputo paints scenarios of other acts of faith in his appropriately titled book: Acts of Faith
One act of faith he describes is the faith necessary to fly an airplane into a war torn country where there is a possibility that the destination runway will not be usable or that the plane itself might be shot at. (For me, just getting into a normal commercial plane on a normal flight is an act of faith!) Another act of faith he describes is that faith necessary to make a lifelong commitment to someone we love. This might be better described as a huge leap of faith since we can’t know for certain how we will feel about that person years from now, or even what they are truly like.
Caputo also delves into acts of religious faith, both good and bad, or really, shows how many acts of religious faith can be both at the same time. For instance, he shows how a pumped-up Christian missionary is able to convert a Muslim women, but then the women is beaten severely when her husband learns of her conversion. He also shows how religious faith can inspire people to fly relief supplies into destitute areas, but then how the same religious faith allows them to justify their actions when they start ferrying arms and other implements of war into those areas. And of course, there is much killing of “infidels” inspired and supported by religious faith.
The book is set mainly in Sudan and goes into a lot of detail of the geography, indigenous people, conflicts, geography and relief efforts in that area. I found this to be very educational because even though this book is a work of fiction, I am assuming that Caputo did his homework and presents a realistic picture of the situation in Sudan today. Hmm, but I don’t really know how accurate it is, so I guess that means that I have to just take it on faith!